DEC worker claims discrimination

Several top Department of Environmental Conservation officers gathered in the Leo W. O’Brien Federal Building for two days last week. They weren’t planning ways to improve the state’s air, ground and water. They were trying to defend the department during a hearing at which a 30-year-old DEC dispatcher of Puerto Rican heritage and her lawyer laid out charges of discrimination, retaliation and a state office out of control.

According to the story Alelie Serrano told under oath, and supported by the testimony of Juan T. Abadia, director of the DEC’s Bureau of Affirmative Action, Serrano was subjected to the kind of hostile workplace that no employer should tolerate, with incidents of intimidation that included a noose being hung on her locker.

But other than counseling memos placed in four personnel files, no major sanctions were reported. The DEC officials’ witnesses suggested instead that the department is standing behind its personnel, including at least three uniformed officers who commanded Serrano and other civilian dispatchers assigned to the Region 5 offices in Ray Brook.

Serrano, one of five female dispatchers working at the office, testified that her problems with co-workers, chiefly other dispatchers, escalated after she filed a complaint about workers making fun of the salsa music ring tone on her cellphone — one allegedly called it “jungle music” — and her speaking Spanish to her mother.

The dispatchers, paid $635 a week, are supposed to be helping rangers, assisting in search-and-rescue operations and handling a myriad of calls involving hunters, anglers and other users of DEC services.

Administrative Law Judge Edward Luban was curious about the item that Serrano called a “noose” and DEC officials and other dispatchers called a “rope.” Serrano testified that a noose with a 6-inch-by-10-inch opening dangled in front of her locker one evening shift earlier this year. She also testified about a sticky note with a bull’s-eye drawing left on her work station, a mannequin with eyeballs behind its head placed by her desk, and her car being vandalized. She also described incidents of whispering, gesturing and note-passing by her co-workers.

A co-worker who’s also Serrano’s friend backed her up on some of the assertions about people making remarks about her race. So did Serrano’s husband, an environmental conservation officer working from the Ray Brook office. Serrano testified she has developed ulcers and isn’t sleeping well.

The department’s witnesses said they were unaware of a noose, but said a rope was brought to the office and used by another dispatcher to practice knots for search-and-rescue training.

Abadia, a former U.S. Army Ranger, testified that “there was no way that that rope looked like anything but a hanging noose.” He said he learned through a tape recording that Col. Steven Gerould had called Abadia’s investigation report “embellished.” Abadia, who recommended diversity training, found there was a hostile work environment, animus toward Serrano and neglect by supervisors. He said he later discovered that the sergeant who should have prevented the discrimination instead received an evaluation that showed his performance as excellent.